All of this is true, but I’ll just be nitpicky to make a point:
> Does a future event's processing circumstances maybe depend on all events received up until now?
In a parallel prefix sum, the final sum does depend on all prior inputs, but a good parallel implementation runs in O(log(n)) time. It is, of course, not a total ordering problem, but that’s not obvious at first glance — I’ve always thought it was a beautiful example of something that appears to be entirely sequential but actually parallelizes really well.
All of which is to say that, yeah, we’re latency bound at the end of the day, but there’s a lot more innovation and performance left to be wrung out of most systems. A little creativity goes a long way, and I like the idea of a universe where the software is the main determinant of performance — where you can’t get away with just waiting for the next generation of chips.
> Does a future event's processing circumstances maybe depend on all events received up until now?
In a parallel prefix sum, the final sum does depend on all prior inputs, but a good parallel implementation runs in O(log(n)) time. It is, of course, not a total ordering problem, but that’s not obvious at first glance — I’ve always thought it was a beautiful example of something that appears to be entirely sequential but actually parallelizes really well.
All of which is to say that, yeah, we’re latency bound at the end of the day, but there’s a lot more innovation and performance left to be wrung out of most systems. A little creativity goes a long way, and I like the idea of a universe where the software is the main determinant of performance — where you can’t get away with just waiting for the next generation of chips.